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Angos
Angos started out as an auxiliary language for English, Chinese, and Spanish; it had a balance between each language's complexity and expressive features. Currently, the language draws its vocabulary from a number of different languages, including Swahili, Arabic, Japanese, and even Basque. This language was co-developed by users Detectivekenny, Panglossa, and Razlem, with some others. "Angos" 'aŋ.gos simply means "Artificial Language". *Please use the talk page for this article to discuss about the page content. Main discussion for the project is going on at the forum. Please note: Though the banner says that the language has been completed, various aesthetic changes may still be made. Do not accept anything on this page as set in stone. Phonology Vowels: a, e, i, o, u Consonants: p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, w, j, h, f, s, r~l (rhotic is allowable), v The digraph ng may be pronounced ŋɡ Diphthongs: aw, iw, ow, aj, ej, oj Stress: Penultimate Syllable Structure (C = consonant; V = vowel; S = semivowel) *V *VC *CV *SV *CVS *SVC *CVC *SVS *CCV *CSV *CSVS *CSVC Language Characteristics The idea is for it to be lightly inflected with a tendency to isolate. A few unique innovations are also present in the language: Medial Vowel System Drawing from similar IALs, this language features a classification system where the last vowel indicates the part of speech. Nouns: 'o' Verbs: 'a' Adjectives: 'i' Adverbs: 'e' Other (conjunctions, prepositions, particles): u Natural and Artificial Noun Distinction In this language, parts of speech are distinguished as either naturi (natural) or omsanati (artificial, i.e man-made). Natural words take a vowel, and to denote an artificial quality, an "s" can be added. Word Derivation Angos is a noun-based language, meaning every non-particle has a noun root. What? Impossible you say? Maybe. But I've found a way (kinda) to make it work with traditional verbs. Each verb is roughly "to noun" For example, the full inflection of the word'' ot'' meaning "fire". Now for a usual verb, "to have". The noun for this is a "grip" or "hold", b-'' *''ba ''- to get, have, know, understand, take A word of caution: words in this language are meant to be ambiguous as to facilitate conversation. The reasoning behind this system is the equation (VERB + noun), where the verb is whatever the context allows. The first example ot''a "to fire", can be taken as "go to a fire" or "to start a fire". The second example verb is "to have a grip of something" or "to get a grip of something", as in to make something in your grip or hold, to have it in your grip or on your person. "But wait Razlem! What about 'to be'?" Omitted. Completely. Yeah, you heard me. I am a noun = Wo noun I am adjective = Wo adjective See the Vocabulary section for more examples. Other Derivatives Person who is doing VERB = endocentric compound (giomo = runner) Person who does VERB habitually = seme (seme giomo = runner) Person who does VERB professionally = profes (profes giomo = professional runner) Place with lots of NOUN, Place where VERB is done = -oj- (pohonojo = forest) (arojos = kitchen) Determining Gender All nouns are inherently a neutral gender. Person - omo Male - na- Female - ni- Man = naomo Male runner = nagiomo Woman = niomo Female runner = nigiomo No Plural Inflections This language does not include inflections for plurals normally found in other IALs, nor does it include traditional articles. The particle "ru" functions as a plural marker. Demonstrative correlatives are used in place of definite articles. :I see a cow - Wo via sapio I see cow :I see cows - Wo via ru sapio I see (more than one) cow :I see the cow - Wo via fogu sapio I see this cow :I see the cows - Wo via fogu ru sapio [lit. I see this (more than one) cow} Particles Angos employs heavy use of particles to determine aspect, tense, mood, etc. The polar particles su and nu can be attached to other particles to emphasize or negate respectively. Tense: :Present tense is unmarked : Moods: :Interrogative - tsu (must always begin the question): Tsu wo ala? - Do I cook? (this is only used if there is no interrogative correlative) : :The negative necessity modal numu means explicitly "must not" as in "You must not cook": To numu ara. To say something like "You do not have to cook", you would place a negative marker in front of the positive modal: To nu sumju ara ''(You no must cook) :*Directive commands can be expressed with just the verb: ''Ara! (Eat) Nu ara! (Don't eat) :*Volitive commands are expressed with -''vamu'': Suvamu gia! (Let's go!) Nuvamu gia (let's not go) Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality: Comparison: Polarity: Particle Placement Particles go before whatever they enhance, so there is no standardized placement in terms of word order. Some placement examples have been shown above. Morphology Syntax Basic sentence structure (unmodified) is SVO: Wo kerea goro ''(I throw the ball) Modifiers Some particles and adverbs are relatively free, so long as whatever they modify is understood. Generally, if you want to be clear, place the modifier before whatever it modifies. [Mire] [''wo] [nu ba mao] (Thankfully, I don't have a cat) [Wo] [mire] [nu ba mao] <-- The most clear, as it is placed as close as possible in front of the verb. [Wo] [nu ba mao] [mire] In this case, the negative polar particle nu can only go before ba ''(it will only negate the succeeding word). ''Mao is an object and must directly succeed the verb unless it is being modified (e.g: ...ba bari mao) Prepositional Phrases Prepositional phrases succeed the verb. If there is an object, the PP goes after the object. Djon ara ['hiu''' ru ajnajos]. (John eats on Sundays) ''Djon ara pitso ['hiu''' ru ajnajos]. (John eats pizza on Sundays) Correlatives Verb Transitivity Transitive and intransitive verbs are unmarked. Transitive: ''Wo mabada object = I change object Intransitive: Wo raksa = I dance Compounding Angos uses endocentric compounding, in which A+B denotes a special kind of B. In Angos, compounding is generally used for artificial words with no natural counterparts. Stress is placed on the penultimate syllable of each root in the compound. Store :tovar = merchandise :oj = place ::tovar + oj + Part of Speech Marker = tovarojos = store merchandise place Windmill mag = grain :oj = place ::mag + oj + POS marker = magojos = granary/mill seed place :baver = wind ::baver + magojos = bavermagojos = windmill wind seed place Television :vi = eye :mek = machine, mechanism ::vimekos = TV eye machine Telephone :ans = conversation :mek = machine, mechanism ::ansmekos = telephone conversation machine Computer :n'' = brain :''mek = machine, mechanism ::nomekos = computer brain machine (In this case, an 'o' can prevent a clumsy cluster) Vocabulary This isn't terribly organized, and doing full inflections would require a tremendous amount of space, so just bear with me for the time being :) Nouns The noun inventory in Angos is relatively low, only a little more than 360 roots (as of May 2011). But when inflected, there are more than 3000 distinct meanings. The pie chart above shows the percentage of the language groups whose vocabulary was used in creating Angos. Pronouns The pronouns follow the same inflection rules as other nouns. However, when used as adjectives, they become possessive pronouns (my, your, their, our) Particles (prepositions, conjunctions, other) *Seu is used for possession: :Reisos seu visino - The neighbor's house house of neighbor :Mao seu wi nasisaro- My brother's cat cat of my brother The only exceptions to this are the pronouns, which use the adjective ending to denote possession. **Inu and daju are strictly spatial particles (e.g. I am in the house - Wo inu reisos). The particle hiu is strictly temporal and would be used for phrases like "on Sunday" (hiu ajnajos) or "in three hours" (hiu tin tjaso). Table of Correlatives Using the Table of Correlatives Questions are always in the format: Particle-Subject-Verb-Object The interrogative correlatives (as well as the particle 'tsu') act as clause enhancers; they will always begin the question. :Koju to gia? - Where are you going? :Tsu to kafeoja? - Are you going to the coffee shop? :Tsu ro paniiko? - Is it blue? Relatives are formed with the addition of the particle "tu": :Wo ba '''tu komu' mu fejwa'' - I know who did it Word Tables Example Inflections Introductions Usage In this section, I'll compare some sentence structures in Angos to those of English. I don't really have much linguistic experience in this area, so any help/advice would be awesome. Countries of the World Each country has its own root, and can be combined with krajo, ango, ''or ''omo to refer to the country, language/dialect, or person respectively. Estuko Ajn- Nehasi Isjaros seu Ompiravo Haskubavelo ju Jango Lu 2010-2011 Kati'es'kui ju Has'ku'afriki Hadajos ...... The Tower of Babel (2010) This is an older version of Angos. I'll leave it here for archiving purposes.